


I Need You, You Need Me

by scumbaganarchy



Series: Once In Every Lifetime [4]
Category: The Young Ones (TV 1982)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst with a Happy Ending, Canon Death Mention, Closeted Character, Coming Out, Flashbacks, Internalized Homophobia, M/M, Wakes & Funerals, but shh it's a total secret, post summer holiday, rick and vyv are very gay for each other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-14
Updated: 2020-06-14
Packaged: 2021-03-04 06:07:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,179
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24718756
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/scumbaganarchy/pseuds/scumbaganarchy
Summary: Vyvyan doesn't care about anyone. He really doesn't.Besides, dealing with emotions is girly and dumb and definitely not appropriate at Rick's parents' funeral. There certainly won't be any confessions or confrontations from this punk - none whatsoever.
Relationships: Vyvyan Basterd/Rick (Young Ones)
Series: Once In Every Lifetime [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1383751
Comments: 2
Kudos: 11





	I Need You, You Need Me

~THEN~

The world was on fire. Or, at least, it seemed that way to Vyvyan.

Smoke, flames and heat filled the air, giving off the impression that he had somehow locked himself inside a furnace. How had this happened? What the bloody hell was going on? It wasn’t that Vyvyan was panicked – he was just genuinely confused.

Heavy limbs; fuzzy head; ears ringing… ah yes, this wasn’t so unfamiliar. Had he blown something up again? Something big? Highly flammable? A burning sensation in his chest suddenly caused him to erupt in a fit of coughs. Heh, so this was serious then. Still, at least he could move; it would be intolerable if one of the guys had to come and rescue him from whatever this was.

Now, there was a point: where were the guys? Vyvyan counted to three in his mind before swinging himself up into a sitting position, coughing again. He squinted at the destruction around him, quickly noticing that it wasn’t floorboard he had been lying on, it was stone and bits of charred metal. What? He glanced to his right and finally noticed the burning bus.

Oh yeah. Now he remembered.

“Vyv!”

A beacon of hope reared his soot covered head and removed his dirty shades. It was Mike.

“Vyv, are you alright?”

He sounded exhausted, like something had knocked all the air from his lungs. Well, to be fair, something had. Vyvyan cringed and hoped it passed for pain.

“Yeah,” he replied, surprising even himself with how gravelly his voice was. He coughed sharply, “You?”

Mike waved him off, taking the opportunity to bend over and use his knees for support.

“I’m fine, Vyv,” he assured him, “The explosion sent me, Rick and Neil over that way-” he pointed somewhere to left, “-I figured you’d be over here.” Mike stood back to his full height and sighed, “Well, I hoped.”

Vyvyan nodded, hauling himself up as well. He wasn’t feeling so good now and it had nothing to do with the slight shakiness in his sore limbs.

“Are they… are they okay?” he asked uneasily.

It wasn’t that he cared. Vyvyan Basterd didn’t care about anyone, not even himself, so he certainly didn’t care about the other bastards he had been forced to live with for the past three years. Not at all.

Mike smiled a tired, yet annoyingly knowing, smile.

“They’re alright. A bit shaken but – y’know – not stirred.”

Vyvyan stared at him for a few seconds.

“Too soon for James Bond?” Mike guessed.

~NOW~

It had been about a week since the unspeakable incident in the spare bedroom.

Neil and his parents still didn’t know that anything suspect had happened; the elder Pyes must have presumed that Rick and Vyvyan were always cold and snippy with each other… which, to be fair, wasn’t totally incorrect. Unnamed leader that he was, Mike had tried to talk Vyvyan into making up with Rick somehow, maybe even – retch, retch, retch – try kissing him again! What!? It disturbed Vyvyan a tad that Mike didn’t object at all to his newly discovered poofiness. He hadn’t expected people to approve! If they approved then he didn’t have an excuse to pretend it hadn’t happened, did he?

Really, Vyvyan wasn’t even sure what the kiss had meant. Why had he done it? It had seemed like a good idea at the time – either kiss Rick or do as he wished and bloody murder him! Jesus Christ. The People’s Poet was in a right mess and Vyvyan hadn’t helped one bit.

It had taken a lot of willpower not to smash anything else since their memorable arrival at the Pye house: he hadn’t gone within two metres of Rick since the kiss. Deep down, Vyvyan knew that not destroying the furniture was important and crucial and all those other end of the line words. He knew that if he let loose some of the rage that had been bubbling away beneath the surface, or some of the hurt, or even some of the guilt – and that last one especially was a secret – then the four of them would be well and truly screwed.

Well, at least until Mike got around to re-securing their old house from the Balowski family. The cool person had told the punk about the story in the papers as soon as the extremely awkward conversation about what exactly Rick and Vyvyan had been doing in the spare room had finished. He had probably told him as means of cheering him up. After all, it was good news.

Not like every other kind of news they received these days.

“How was it, Rick?”

The anxious drones of a nervous Neil snapped Vyvyan from his thoughts. Tonight was the night before the funeral, at long last. Perhaps Rick would cheer the hell up after it was done? Possibly… but probably not. They had all been waiting in the drawing room for him to return from the funeral directors, an uncomfortable silence coating both responsible and irresponsible adults.

But now he was here.

“I…” Rick began, his face twisting downwards in a sad sort of confusion.

Mrs Pye stood up to comfort him immediately and Vyvyan had to swallow his sarcasm.

“I don’t know… it was… weally weird, actually…”

He still seemed confused. Vyvyan supposed Rick had never seen real corpses before, not like he had on his medical course. Although, Vyvyan hadn’t ever seen the corpses of people he cared about, had he? Mainly because he didn’t care about anyone and that was that. But still.

“It’s a very strange time, Richard,” Mrs Pye told him soothingly, “I suggest you get an early night so you’re ready for tomorrow.”

The boy who supposedly didn’t take orders from anybody nodded, not quite there, and went to leave. Vyvyan listened to his slow footfalls on the stairs and pretended he couldn’t hear the choked sobs emanating from Neil’s bedroom that came after them.

Tellingly, the five who remained all stared at each other with similar expressions of concern. Apart from Vyvyan, of course, who just glared at the floor, willing it to catch fire. Once a few minutes of this painful routine had passed, Mr Pye got up with a sigh.

“You boys have your suits ready?” he asked.

Neil nodded.

“Yes, dad, they’re in the wardrobe,” he assured him.

“And thank you again for readjusting mine, Mrs Pye,” Mike cut in, coughing awkwardly.

Their chat bored Vyvyan, whose mind was still fixed solely on the sound of Rick’s sobs. He used to like it when the girly knob cried – Vyvyan was usually the cause of his tears! Yet now… now the noise caused something else to stir within him and it wasn’t something Vyvyan liked. It was as if he wanted to go up there right now – despite everything that had happened between them – and tell Rick things were going to be okay. Hold him, if necessary. Let him cry all over Neil’s stupid hippie clothes. Now, that was just insane, wasn’t it? Vyvyan was actually losing it living here; why on earth should he want to do any of that!?

You know why… the smart part of him that he tried to ignore wherever possible whispered. Why else would you bloody kiss him?

Bollocks. It was getting harder and harder to deny it.

~THEN~

By the time Mike and Vyvyan had staggered over to the others, it was clear that Rick’s anger had been brewing in anticipation and was just about ready to erupt. The four of them didn’t look hugely damaged physically, just incredibly dirty and a little shaken, as Mike had said. Rick was hovering near to Neil, who looked slightly out of it, with one of the most venomous expressions Vyvyan had ever seen seared into his face. Blue eyes ablaze; lip curled in contempt; cheeks red and furious – this was bad. This was real anger, wasn’t it? Not any of that put-on, exaggerated crap he liked to pull most of the time. Vyvyan almost let himself gulp.

“VYVYAN, YOU TOTAL BASTARD!!!” Rick exploded at him.

“Oh, heavy, heavy, heavy…” Neil could be heard muttering.

“Rick, come on-”

“No, Michael, he is! That bus – that useless, smouldering pile of burning metal over there – that was supposed to be our ticket out of the gutter!” Rick ranted, stomping closer to Vyvyan to make sure he took note of the chaos he had caused at the bottom of the cliff. “You’ve wuined everything, Vyvyan, everything! We’re worse off than we were before we wobbed the bank!”

“Really, Rick, now isn’t the time-”

“I can’t believe this: you dwove the bus off a cliff-”

“Rick-”

“-and you didn’t even have the common decency to kill us all!”

“Rick!”

“What kind of fascist are you!?”

That was when Vyvyan finally snapped and kicked the simmering poet to the ground, teeth clenched in some kind of animalistic snarl. What was most infuriating was the way that Rick – ever the coward who crumbled in these types of situations – was glaring defiantly back up at him just as loathsomely as Vyvyan was scowling down. The punk didn’t trust himself to reply to any of what had just been said with words, not when he wasn’t fully gathered yet. He felt on the edge of some kind of mania.

“Vyv…” Mike warned him, sounding about twenty years older than his real age, “Guys, we don’t have time for this – us and this scene have got to split faster than Maggie and Denis when the door to Number 10’s been shut.”

Still moaning incoherently, Neil got to his feet. He and the cool person began a careful walk in the opposite direction to the wreckage. Vyvyan and Rick didn’t move a muscle.

“Are you going to wespond?” Rick scoffed.

There was something raw and unpleasant dancing in his eyes, although the initial anger had faded somewhat. No, no, no!

“Get up, you stupid prick…” Vyvyan grunted at him eventually, abruptly taking off after Mike and Neil before Rick could say anything else.

No, the twisting in his guts was not a sign of anything odd. No, of course Rick was wrong about everything. No, Vyvyan did not feel bloody guilty!

But that wasn’t the last time he would see Rick so incensed. Bloody spare bedrooms and their walls with ears.

~NOW~

For better or for worse, Vyvyan hadn’t seen Rick the next morning. This had been a conscious choice on the punk’s part and one enabled by pure avoidance tactics – staying in the spare room until he was absolutely, one hundred percent sure that the other Pratts had arrived to pick up Rick and whisk him away in the no doubt dreary black car they had hired. When he heard the voice of an old woman and the name “Richard”, he knew the bastards had arrived. He was in the safe zone now. That was one blessing, Vyvyan supposed, that Rick had to hang around his extended family until the formalities were over.

As soon as the door had snapped shut, it was rush, rush, rush amongst the Pyes and their visitors. Vyvyan was briskly dragged downstairs by Mike and out on to the front path.

They simply couldn’t arrive later than the family! Simply couldn’t!

Vyvyan didn’t see the issue in arriving a tad late and slinking in quietly at the back of the chapel; at least that way they could escape quickly if things went south. Naturally, Mrs Pye disagreed completely – not that Vyvyan had been foolish enough to tell her his opinion on matters – and so the five of them were crammed into Mr Pye’s disgustingly posh Bentley before the Pratts and the hearse they were following had gotten to the end of the road.

Neil was sat in the middle at the back, awkward as always, with Mike on the right behind Mr Pye and Vyvyan on the left behind Mrs Pye. They were all dressed up in a mixture of Neil and his father’s old suits… although why on earth a person should need this many suits was beyond Vyvyan. The fabric was itchy and smelled like old soap; he just didn’t feel himself in it. Then again, he didn’t exactly feel himself in Neil’s ordinary clothes either. It was all just such bollocks! His hair had been floppy and boring for days now!

Come to think of it, it was a bloody miracle that no one had forced Vyvyan to take his studs or nose ring out for the funeral as he could tell from Mrs Pye’s pursed lips in the rear view mirror that she wasn’t best pleased with their existence. No taste, that woman.

Ah well. If neither of them spoke to one another maybe one of them would bugger off and spontaneously combust? Vyvyan had his hopes pinned on her. Surely Neil wouldn’t mind too much.

“Have either of you been to a funeral before?” Mr Pye asked his son’s… friends.

Probably just trying to make conversation. Kill off the silence.

“Not for a very long time, Mr Pye,” Mike revealed, still trying to sound jovial and suave, “It was a friend, you see, ate the wrong tin of biscuits.”

At the thought, Mrs Pye visibly stiffened.

“Can gone off biscuits really, like, kill you?” Neil inquired.

“I don’t know, Neil – it wasn’t biscuits that he ate.”

There was a brief pause where Vyvyan let himself smirk. Trust Mike to come out with something like that in front of two squares on the way to a funeral! He really was a cool guy, wasn’t he?

“And… and what about you, Vyvyan?” Mr Pye prompted.

It was almost funny how borderline scared the elder Pyes sounded when they addressed Vyvyan directly, which they very rarely did for this very reason. If Vyvyan had been a more poofy person then this might have bothered him but he was used to adverse reactions. In fact, he was fairly certain that the first one he had received had been shortly after his birth, when the nurse had tried to hand him to his mother-

There was no need to think about her.

“No,” he responded gruffly.

And there wasn’t much more to be said.

~THEN~

“I’m just tired, Neil, aren’t you?”

He could hear him startlingly clearly even when the bastard was whispering; was Rick really so incapable of the mere notion of quietness or was Vyvyan just getting paranoid at the sound of his girly voice? God, he hoped it was the first one. The second option was too embarrassing to consider.

That said, despite his better judgement and past experiences, Vyvyan still wanted to know why Rick hadn’t just accepted the blanket Neil had offered him. Vyvyan certainly would have in his situation. As it was, even with their better blanket wrapped around him, he was shivering. The cold had seeped into him since this homeless ordeal had begun and he didn’t like it one bit. Vyvyan wasn’t used to feeling cold, he had thought he was immune.

Rick must have been feeling it too. He must have been.

Annoyingly, Vyvyan’s stomach started twisting at the thought – something it had been doing a lot since he had almost gotten them all killed. He wished Rick would stop behaving like this: like he wanted to be alone and would never be happy again. Then maybe Vyvyan could stop having thoughts and feelings about him for a bit. Well, the thoughts and feelings that had been creeping in as of late. Rick couldn’t just change like this and leave Vyvyan with stomach problems! What a selfish wanker he was, Rick would never have done what the punk found himself doing next.

“Rick.”

He was stood over Rick with the blanket. How had that happened? The People’s Poet was visibly trembling, probably crying; Vyvyan had the feeling he was at least shaking, himself. This was weirdly embarrassing. If Neil said anything now-

Just ignore the hippie, ignore the hippie, ignore the hippie. It was bloody good luck that Mike happened to be asleep.

A trickle of apprehension slithered its way down Vyvyan’s spine. Rick hadn’t said anything. Was he going to have to repeat himself? Was he being purposely ignored?

“Vyvyan.”

The reply came just in time. It was subdued, delicate – as if Rick was on the edge of something and expected Vyvyan to push him right off… not an unfounded concern, to be fair. Vyvyan needed to say something else, didn’t he?

“Budge up, you bastard,” he muttered, trying to mimic his typical callousness.

Tellingly, Rick hadn’t looked his way yet at all, which likely meant a yes to the tears. It appeared that he was shivering as Vyvyan had thought he would be. That was good; that meant his reason for doing this was explainable and not some out-of-character anomaly that no one would ever forget. He just had to bite the bullet.

Three, two, one. Vyvyan nudged Rick, perhaps harder than he had intended, thanks to the adrenaline and all.

“Put the blanket on,” he instructed him because what else could he do?

That was the point of this, after all. It was.

Rick finally turned to look at him – well, not at him, at the blanket. Stubborn git. His blue eyes were glassy but his cheeks still dry, meaning the dam was holding for now. Amidst his obvious misery, he still had the audacity to be nonplussed by Vyvyan’s generosity.

“Just keep it, Vyvyan,” Rick told him, sounding tired of their interaction already.

He couldn’t be exasperated yet! Honestly, you try and do a nice thing! Vyvyan ground his teeth to prevent whatever remark he wanted to make from slipping out. He knew how to change his tune…

Rather suddenly – and arguably to the surprise of the punk just as much as the poet – Vyvyan whipped the blanket around them both and was immediately hit by a wave of their new proximity. Shit. Rick was gazing at him, almost transfixed in some form of… awe? No. That was too strong a word. Far too positive. Surprise maybe? Their misty breath danced about in the notably small gap between them.

Rick was so – so Rickish. Everything about him screamed Rick, Vyvyan couldn’t describe it. Truth be told, he hadn’t ever met anyone else who seemed to effortlessly ooze what made them, them as well as Rick did. Obviously, the bastard also made quite the hobby of pretending he was actually something else but it wasn’t a hobby he was particularly gifted in. Vyvyan could see him. Very clearly. Especially now. And he should hate him, shouldn’t he? He should despise the mummy’s boy who had had his life handed to him on a silver plate; the entitled brat who thought he had the answer to the world’s suffering; the misguided fool who wanted so desperately to be cool when he just couldn’t be. He really couldn’t. Didn’t Vyvyan hate his very guts?

He thought he had. Then they nearly died.

And now that he was staring at Rick and neither one of them were screaming, he really wasn’t bloody sure of anything.

Rick snuggled closer to him- wait, was Vyvyan going to think of it as snuggling?

“What are you doing?” Rick asked.

Vyvyan’s cheeks burned despite the cold and he felt his civil resolve fracturing.

“I’m trying to be nice to you, you poof. Can’t you be grateful for once in your life?” he snapped, “I’m beginning to remember why I don’t normally bother.”

He did mean that, sort of. God knew Rick Pratt was one of the least grateful people on the planet and Vyvyan didn’t have to be doing this – putting himself forward for ritual humiliation so the bogey-bum didn’t freeze to death. Still, poof had been the wrong word. He didn’t need those associations right now; didn’t want to slip up. He noticed Rick’s face twisting in that unique way it did when he got upset.

“I- I’m sorry, Vyvyan. Thank you for the blanket.”

Oh. Oh dear. Things were going from mildly worrying to absolutely concerning faster than the punk’s bowel movements after a curry… not that Vyvyan had reason to care.

Rick looked down, shaking again and making Vyvyan feel bad. Urgh! No, no, no!

He swallowed and grabbed Rick’s chin, forcing his face up again so that their eyes could meet. Expectedly, the poet’s unshed tears had multiplied. There was a pitiful sniff.

“Listen to me, you girly bastard,” Vyvyan started seriously, meaning the insult but also hoping it would establish some badly needed normalcy in their conversation, “We’re going to get through this, alright? You, me, Michael and Neil – we will.”

Now, Vyvyan couldn’t possibly have known that for sure. A lot of the time he believed the exact opposite, in fact, but he was a medical student… or had been a medical student. He had taken at least some note on what bedside manner was. He wasn’t quite that lazy a student, despite monumentally effing up his exams. Rick shook his head forcefully.

“But how can you say that? Nobody cares about us! Not anymore! There’s no one-” he cut himself off, closing his eyes and shuddering once more. Vyvyan felt the movement, that was how close they were.

“There never has been anyone,” the punk offered, supposing he might as well try and keep Rick talking as it seemed to be easing the crippling sensation in his stomach a tad. He removed his hand from his chin and frowned. “Are you-”

“No I’m not!” Rick snapped back. There was the fire they were all used to! Vyvyan could have grinned if things weren’t so fragile and unfunny.

Rick was crying. He cried often but not like this and Vyvyan hadn’t ever wanted to stop him from crying before.

“And you’re wrong! You might have never had anyone but I did! Two people, actually-”

And then Rick Pratt was sobbing against Vyvyan Basterd, who instinctively wrapped an arm around him as if he had been doing it for years. His heart was hammering painfully; he wasn’t so cold anymore. Well, well, well.

That was the moment Vyvyan realised he was completely and utterly screwed and yet – perhaps more scarily – he didn’t even care. Until, of course, the poofiness had started getting too real. Who was Rick to comment on his hair, anyway? They were barely even friends!

~NOW~

Now, of course, now things had changed again.

To be fair to the Pratt family, the funeral wasn’t awful. Vyvyan and the others were spared the humiliation of slipping in late and so had sat amongst the proper guests… although the punk’s hair dye and studs did make them stand out, it had to be said. Nothing particularly exciting happened, which on any other day would have been considered a let-down of the highest order. Today however, Vyvyan wasn’t feeling overwhelmingly destructive and he didn’t like that he knew the reason why.

So, what were the all-important funerals people made such a fuss of? Apparently, funerals consisted of meaningless hymns, two identical coffins up at the front with white roses on top and an old vicar speaking solemnly and reassuringly in front of the family, who were all clad in black. It kind of put Vyvyan off the idea of having one when he died, truth be told, since he didn’t believe something so depressing could encapsulate him. Maybe Neil. Though it wouldn’t actually be up to him in the end, would it?

Jesus, it was a good thing the four of them hadn’t died in that bus crash! Imagine if their funerals had been held together!? That would have been insufferable! Vyvyan would have had to return from the dead just to wreck it!

Apart from the dullness, Vyvyan was vaguely aware of Mrs Pye crying at some point – but then she was a soppy old cow and probably cried at the last episode of The Good Life too. A little more surprising were the few, quiet tears he noticed Neil shedding when one of Rick’s aunts got up to recount a childhood tale about her late sister. Bloody hippie. Vyvyan didn’t want to say Mike had cried because he was Mike the Cool Person and tears weren’t his way, yet his shades didn’t leave his face once when they entered the chapel.

“…the family wish to end with this piece of music,” the old vicar finished up after a lifetime, snapping Vyvyan out of his haze of stillness.

The chapel hall was suddenly filled with the voice of someone the punk was all too well acquainted with: Cliff Richard. It was a struggle not to scoff loudly and throw up.

The young ones  
Darling, we’re the young ones

It was the same poofy song Rick had prattled on about in the alley that night. The night. The standout one. Talking of Rick, what was he doing?

Vyvyan was perfectly aware of what Rick was doing, really; try as he might have, he hadn’t been able to keep his gaze off the back of the so-called anarchist’s head for more than thirty seconds. If only Rick had seen fit to break down in sobs and catapult himself at the coffins, maybe then everyone else would have stared at him too and Vyvyan wouldn’t have felt quite so obsessive.

But Rick didn’t do that.

As the Pratts trudged ever so slowly out of the chapel, like a vast, mournful wave of repressed emotion and uptight morality – with Cliff singing ignorantly in the background, naturally – Vyvyan accidentally caught Rick’s eye. Just for a split second.

Nothing happened; the world didn’t end. In fact, Rick carried on walking as if the connection had never occurred. The boy wasn’t even crying, which surprised Vyvyan in a not so good way. He did look as depressed as a person could be but… but there was something else. The punk’s own face was beginning to flush disgustingly with unspoken thoughts. He needed to get out of here and away from all of these grey squares – it was oppressive! Blessed relief came when the guests started filtering out into the cemetery.

“Oh, that was a lovely service, wasn’t it?” Mrs Pye harped at no one in particular.

Was it? Bloody hell, if that was considered lovely then just what was considered nasty? Vyvyan scanned the crowd of mourning nobodies with a fraught disposition and worrying sense of urgency that the fresh air had only eased by a fraction. Rick, Rick, Rick; where was the bastard!? He didn’t want him popping up out of nowhere.

“Richard, really!” a shrill voice cried out from over to the left.

Aha!

A few of the other people – including Mike and Neil – glanced across in time to see the back of Rick storming away from the crowd, one hand raised to his face as if to wipe away tears. The host of the shill voice that must have upset him was a distinguishably tall, elderly woman with what looked like claws for hands. When she scowled, as she was now, Vyvyan could see the resemblance; this was obviously Rick’s grandmother. The old woman turned away from the retreating figure of her grandson with a sniff and the gathered onlookers soon followed suit.

What… was nobody going to check on the son of the two corpses lying in the chapel!? Was everyone a complete sheep!?

“Vyv-”

The punk ignored even Mike’s half-hearted plea as he stomped away after Rick, not really thinking about what he was about to say or do once he reached the poet. The sound of Mrs Pye tutting her disapproval danced in the wind that followed him.

Though… the blood in his ears was louder.

Before Vyvyan had time to gather his thoughts or sort out his head at all he was behind Rick, who was looking down at a cluster of old gravestones that were engraved with unreadable words. Time had likely had its fun with them – time and the crappy weather. As Vyvyan stared at them, taking in the odd angles some were bent at, he almost forgot that he wasn’t alone and he couldn’t stay in this single moment indefinitely. A nearby tree rustled in the wind.

“Vyvyan.” Rick acknowledged his presence in an uncharacteristically soft voice.

He didn’t sound fragile, not exactly, but there was certainly a melancholy echo to his tone. It was too familiar. Vyvyan coughed.

“Rick.” He mirrored him, although his voice was gruffer.

There was a sigh and the People’s Poet turned to face him after a week of avoidance. Shit.

Rick’s eyes were waterier than they had been in the chapel; something must have happened with his grandmother then. For some reason, Vyvyan was experiencing the urge to go and thump on old lady. He was so screwed, wasn’t he?

“Uh… condolences on your… loss,” he said to him.

What? What was that? What was he saying? Luckily, Rick laughed. It wasn’t a happy laugh and it didn’t last very long but there it was.

“You’wre not vewry good at this, are you?” he asked, that hint of superiority creeping back in. Yet, as if to remind Vyvyan that this wasn’t a normal situation and he shouldn’t lose his temper, Rick’s face suddenly fell in realisation of something. “You’wre the only person who’s said that to me today…”

Oh.

The punk scuffed the fancy shoes he had been given against the muddy grass and nodded as if this was the response that Rick’s statement required. Offering that blanket in the alley – not even that long ago – hadn’t half opened a can of worms! He glanced up at him in an effort to say something else meaningless.

“Rick, I-”

But the words were ripped from his throat. Torn. Surgically removed and carted off to be stored in a nuclear bunker under the earth, never to be heard from. Instead, Vyvyan just gaped at him in silence. Rick was crying.

It was the misery and the tears and the pain and the sorrow that got to him – the genuine ache he could see throbbing behind the poet’s eyes. Rick’s face was too much in that moment. Not too spotty, too ugly, too stupid or too judgemental, just too much. There were too many loud feelings bubbling up under the surface, feelings that were spilling out uncontrollably and sliding down his shining cheeks as tear drops. And there were a lot of tears. And snot. Vyvyan’s misfiring mind idly wondered if Rick was some kind of broken dam that would never self-repair.

“Bollocks!” he groaned, defeated at last.

The punk stepped forwards and wrapped his arms around Rick tightly. To be honest, Vyvyan was expecting him to fight against this or demand an explanation – not simply collapse into sobs in his arms and squeeze him back just as tightly.

But Vyvyan couldn’t help himself.

“I thought I could control this but I can’t, I can’t,” he muttered into Rick’s scalp, knowing they would both understand what he meant, “There’s probably some girly social etiquette rule that forbids the subject at funerals… but… bloody hell, Rick, you asked me to kill you last week!”

Unadulterated rage coursed through Vyvyan’s veins at he spoke those words. The bastard! Despite all their fights and insults, how could Rick ask him to do that!? How could he!? Would either of them ever stop being so fucking selfish? Holding Rick now and not beating him to a pulp was probably the only good start available and it made Vyvyan’s eyes prick.

“I- I know,” came the sniffling reply against his neck, “I just feel so-” Rick let out another sob, one that wracked his entire body and Vyvyan’s with it. The punk held him closer and didn’t let go, suddenly unafraid of Rick feeling his hot tears on his head and irrationally terrified that the poet might fall apart if he did let go. “-so wrotten, all the time! And I’m wruddy sick of it, Vyvyan! I thought things were going to get better – that night, with the blanket and the, the… whatever it was. I thought you cared!”

The poet pushed himself away from the punk, leaving Vyvyan exposed and damp eyed in their brave new world of stupid feelings. The venom he had seen after the bus crash and in the spare bedroom was back with a vengeance.

“Stop flip flopping, I weally can’t take it anymore!” Rick spat at him, gesturing wildly to compensate for his cracking voice, “You don’t care and then you do and then you want me dead and then you kiss me and-”

As if on cue, he was fast dissolving into hysterics again.

“That’s not-”

“Yes it blummin’ well is, don’t you dare!” Rick threatened with wide eyes, “Just why exactly did you do it, Vyvyan? Hmm? Are you weally such a gigantic pervy that you couldn’t choose someone more popular or wanted – someone you actually like – to take your sexual fwustwations out on!?”

It seemed the gravestones, however worn and crooked they were, were sturdier than they first appeared for they were supporting Rick’s weight as he wept against them rather well. In fact, they were perfectly stationary in contrast to the poet’s jerky movements.

How had it come to this? Someone was surely going to come and check on Rick and Vyvyan soon if they didn’t return and then what kind of scene would they find? Two closeted bastards crying pathetically over the resting places of 19th century cockneys. Well, Vyvyan couldn’t allow for that. Roughly wiping his cheeks with the back of his hand, he stepped towards Rick.

“The thing is, poof,” he began hesitantly. Vyvyan was aware that it was risky to call Rick anything insulting right now but was hoping that the emotion in his voice would count for something in his favour. He sucked in a deep breath. “I… do… like you.”

It was painful to admit out loud and the unimpressed look on Rick’s face suggested the message hadn’t been as impactful as it should have been.

“Do you think I’m some sort of idiot!?” he immediately snapped back.

Okay. No, no – definitely the wrong message there.

“No! Well, yes, actually, I do-”

“Charming!”

“-but that isn’t the point. I’m not lying – I do like you!” he repeated, noticing that it was getting easier to say, “I don’t know why, ‘cos you are a right tosser, but I do. I keep getting this horrible urge to make sure you’re okay. I thought if I tried to ignore it it’d stop but it hasn’t – it’s only gotten worse!”

Rick sniffed irritably, though apparently had been distracted from his tears.

“And I’m supposed to apologise for your newfound humanity, am I? It’s my fault that you attacked me with that lampshade, I suppose?” he scoffed.

Wincing at the memory and faint bruising still left on Rick’s face, Vyvyan shook his head. Argh! The bogey-bum didn’t understand!

“No, that’s not what I’m saying at all!” he insisted, “I only did that because liking you… liking you scared me, alright?”

It wasn’t just Rick who was going to be needing those gravestones for support – Vyvyan felt like his legs had turned to jelly and his knees were about to go. He wouldn’t have been shocked if Rick was able to hear his pulse. The poet himself had adopted a suspiciously shrewd expression.

“Vyvyan,” he stated plainly after what must have been several decades, “Are you trying to tell me – in the middle of my parents’ funeral when I’m dweadfully upset – that you have a big, girly cwush on me?”

That was… blunt. The punk nervously scrunched and then descrunched his face a few times. He shrugged and cleared his throat.

“Finally caught on, have you?” he joked feebly.

From here, there were several, vastly differing ways events could have unfolded: Rick could have laughed in Vyvyan’s face, or screamed at him, or screamed at him and then run away in fear of having his bottom poked. On the other hand, there was also another route the proceedings could have taken and Vyvyan was mightily glad fate chose that – in his view – unlikeliest option. Instead of recoiling in horror at Vyvyan’s confession, Rick’s face softened and he leant in, pressing his lips against the punk’s.

Time did stop for that. Funnily enough, Vyvyan’s one coherent thought before Rick pulled away was how he tasted saltier than last time – not that he was complaining.

“You’wre a total bastard and I hate you,” Rick told him seriously, even though as he said it he was brushing a droopy bit of hair from Vyvyan’s face. Vyvyan nodded.

“Took the words straight out of my mouth, prick,” he returned.

Rick rolled his eyes and let out a snort.

“Fascist. This doesn’t mean I’ve forgiven you for bashing my head in with a lamp, you know,” he warned him.

Of course, Vyvyan could only smirk.

“I’m sure you can think of some way for me to make it up to you.”

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading, I hope you've enjoyed Once In Every Lifetime!
> 
> Sorry this part has come so late after the rest - other fic ideas and college life got in the way. Part 1 was published on here on 31.5.19... so a little over a year later I'm glad it's finally done. It was quite weird to go back and write parts from Part 1 from Vyv's POV. I think my characterisation has improved a tad since then and that's hopefully reflected in my other fics. Apologies for kinda ignoring any physical injuries being part of a bus crash may have given the boys. I figured that since this is TYO, cartoon logic to violence applies and I'd just focus on emotional pain. I can't help but sprinkle angst everywhere! XD That said, there is some great fic around *cough* Closets by EvilEd *cough* that deals with physical injuries they may have had too.
> 
> Things seem to be looking up for the boys, eh? They seem to have accepted things, which is the first step. I couldn't end it on a sad note, after all. ;) Thank you again for reading!


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